Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

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Leucius Charinus
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Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

I have been looking for some time for some samples or indeed all of these 60 bogus letters [See heading 1) below - bolded] which were attributed by Pseudo-Isidore to popes/bishops supposedly living and breathing in the Ante Nicene epoch. I'd like to get an idea of the identities - who supposedly wrote them, to whom they were sent, etc - and what issues and agendas that these forgeries dealt with.

If anyone can point me to any English translations of these forged letters I'd be grateful.


The Collection of Isidore falls under three headings:
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05773a.htm

(1) A list of sixty apocryphal letters or decrees attributed to the popes from St. Clement (88-97) to Melchiades (311-314) inclusive. Of these sixty letters fifty-eight are forgeries; they begin with a letter from Aurelius of Carthage requesting Pope Damasus (366-384) to send him the letters of his predecessors in the chair of the Apostles; and this is followed by a reply in which Damasus assures Aurelius that the desired letters were being sent. This correspondence was meant to give an air of truth to the false decretals, and was the work of Isidore.

(2) A treatise on the Primitive Church and on the Council of Nicæa, written by Isidore, and followed by the authentic canons of fifty-four councils. It should be remarked, however, that among the canons of the second Council of Seville (page 438) canon vii is an interpolation aimed against chorepiscopi.

(3) The letters mainly of thirty-three popes, from Silvester (314-335) to Gregory II (715-731). Of these about thirty letters are forgeries, while all the others are authentic. This is but a very rough description of their contents and touches only on the more salient points of a most intricate literary question.

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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by DCHindley »

Hi Leucius,

I'm finding an interesting website dedicated to these documents here:
http://pseudoisidore.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ctory.html

Blog owner Eric Knibbs, then Assistant Professor of History at Williams College in Williamstown, MA, has not updated the blog since sometime in 2017.

Looked him up, seems he resigned his professorship at Williams College around 2019 and now teaches medieval history at Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH):
https://williamsliberty.blogspot.com/20 ... liams.html

Apparently Williams College is considered fairly liberal. This link above is to a conservative student blog (with Trump era MAGA ads) at the college. The author of the blog post seems to think that Eric shared his conservatism. Williams College, I believe, is a privately funded college.

I liked what I saw as he was willing to just say what he thought, all based on highly nuanced references to modern scholarship. He often translated the texts he identifies as additions by Pseudo Isidore.

It does not seem that much of the pseudo-Isidore corpus has been translated.

DCH
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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Thanks DCH.

I have in the past corresponded with Eric Knibbs. At some stage (end of 2016?) I was aware he closed down work on his blog at http://pseudoisidore.blogspot.com/ and opened up a new website which I visited on numerous occasions =
https://pseudo-isidore.com/

However in recent months all I get is some Word-Press login so I don't know what's happening there. Eric has written a number of articles available on Jstor such as:

Ebo of Reims, Pseudo-Isidore, and the Date of the False Decretals
Author(s): Eric Knibbs
Source: Speculum, Vol. 92, No. 1 (JANUARY 2017), pp. 144-183
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Medieval Academy of
America
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26154890

He knows his stuff and has been working on pseudo-isidore for a long time. Thanks for the links I am reading through them.

Here's one I recently read: Were letters of Papal Authority from the Church Fathers Forgeries? The Psuedo-Isidore Decretals
https://www.catholicbridge.com/catholic ... sidore.php
We have been all over the Internet and have not found an English translation of these letters. If someone knows of an academic translation, please provide it. We think the Catholic Encyclopedia has an even-handed description of their mistaken acceptance and their detractors before Blondel wrote his book in 1628. He was a Protestant, just after the Reformation who had great motivation to get to the bottom of it. Two Catholic Priests finished off the research to expose the remaining letters.
I can't determine the date this was written but basically they too are seeking to examine a proficient Latin to English translation of some or all of these 60 forged papal letters from the Ante Nicene epoch. At least I do not feel alone asking these questions.

Here are some of my notes taken in the past from Eric's blog

SCHOLARSHIP

20th century, all the Pseudo-Isidore scholars
(Paul Hinschius, Emil Seckel, Horst Fuhrmann)


About ten years ago, Klaus Zechiel-Eckes discovered that our forgers likely did their work
at the monastery of Corbie. He found two Corbie manuscripts -- St. Petersburg, National
Library of Russia, Ms. F. v. I. 11, and Paris, BNF, Ms. lat. 11611 -- with curious marks
and letters in the margins. Both manuscripts contain texts that Pseudo-Isidore used as
sources -- The Petersburg codex has the Historia Tripartita of Cassiodorus; the Paris book
has the acts of the Council of Chalcedon. In both cases, the marginal notes mark off
passages that later on appear as part of that mosiac of sources constituting Pseudo-Isidore's
forged decretals, and also the forged capitulary collection of Benedictus Levita.

So it looks like a secretarial team was going through manuscripts of key works in the Corbie
library (one of the best appointed in all of Carolingian Europe), highlighting relevant passages.

Later on, somebody else took all of these highlighted excerpts and stitched them together,
yielding the forgeries as we have them today. So far we only know of several manuscripts with the
source marks. If this was how Pseudo-Isidore did all of his research, though, poking about should
yield some more.

Zechiel-Eckes argues that the forgery team was likely headed by Paschasius Radbertus, abbot of
Corbie at the time. He also argues that it was done in the later 830s -- significant because
scholars before Zechiel-Eckes wanted to stick the forgeries much later, in the 840s. His
arguments on this front are not quite as airtight, and in some ways they hark back to the earlier
ideas of a nineteenth-century scholar named Wasserschleben.

So, setting Paschasius Radbertus and the 830s aside for the moment -- what are the implications
of Corbie? Well it's in the archiepiscopal province of Reims, long thought to be the Pseudo-Isidore's
center of operations. And Zechiel-Eckes's discovery ties in with other evidence associating
Pseudo-Isidore with Corbie as well. So none of this is entirely unexpected, though it is nevertheless
odd to find a forgery primarily about the status and privilege of bishops coming out of a monastic center.

********************************************
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05773a.htm
The Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore

False Decretals is a name given to certain apocryphal papal letters contained in a collection of canon laws composed about the middle of the ninth century by an author who uses the pseudonym of Isidore Mercator, in the opening preface to the collection. For the student of this collection, the best, indeed the only useful edition, is that of Hinschius, "Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianæ" (Leipzig, 1863). The figures in parenthesis occurring during the course of this article refer the reader to the edition of Hinschius. The name "False Decretals" is sometimes extended to cover not only the papal letters forged by Isidore, and contained in his collection, but the whole collection, although it contains other documents, authentic or apocryphal, written before Isidore's time.

The Collection of Isidore falls under three headings:

(1) A list of sixty apocryphal letters or decrees attributed to the popes
from St. Clement (88-97) to Melchiades (311-314) inclusive. Of these
sixty letters fifty-eight are forgeries; they begin with a letter from Aurelius of Carthage requesting Pope Damasus (366-384) to send him the letters of his predecessors in the chair of the Apostles; and this is followed by a reply in which Damasus assures Aurelius that the desired letters were being sent. This correspondence was meant to give an air of truth to the false decretals, and was the work of Isidore.

(2) A treatise on the Primitive Church and on the Council of Nicæa, written by Isidore, and followed by the authentic canons of fifty-four councils. It should be remarked, however, that among the canons of the second Council of Seville (page 438) canon vii is an interpolation aimed against chorepiscopi.

(3) The letters mainly of thirty-three popes, from Silvester (314-335) to Gregory II (715-731). Of these about thirty letters are forgeries, while all the others are authentic. This is but a very rough description of their contents and touches only on the more salient points of a most intricate literary question.

Their apocryphal character

Nowadays every one agrees that these so-called papal letters are forgeries. These documents, to the number of about one hundred, appeared suddenly in the ninth century and are nowhere mentioned before that time. The most ancient Manuscripts of them that we have are from the ninth century, and their method of composition, of which we shall treat later, shows that they were made up of passages and quotations of which we know the sources; and we are thus in a position to prove that the Pseudo-Isidore makes use of documents written long after the times of the popes to whom he attributes them.

Thus it happens that popes of the first three centuries are made to quote documents that did not appear until the fourth or fifth century;
and later popes up to Gregory I (590-604) are found employing documents dating from the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, and the early part of the ninth.

Then again there are endless anachronisms. The Middle Ages were deceived by this huge forgery, but during the Renaissance men of learning and the canonists generally began to recognize the fraud. Two cardinals, John of Torquemada (1468) and Nicholas of Cusa (1464), declared the earlier documents to be forgeries, especially those purporting to be by Clement and Anacletus. Then suspicion began to grow. Erasmus (died 1536) and canonists who had joined the Reformation, such as Charles du Moulin (died 1568), or Catholic canonists like Antoine* le Conte (died 1586), and after them the Centuriators of Magdeburg, in 1559, put the question squarely before the learned world. Nevertheless the official edition of the "Corpus Juris", in 1580, upheld the genuineness of the false decretals, many fragments of which are to be found in the "Decretum" of Gratian.

As a partial explanation of this it is enough to recall the case of Antonio Agustin (died 1586), the greatest canonist of that period. Agustin seriously doubted the genuineness of the documents, but he never formally repudiated them. He felt he had not sufficient proof at hand, so he simply shirked the difficulty. And it is also to be remembered that, owing to the irritating controversies of the time, anything like an impartial and methodical discussion of such a subject was an utter impossibility.

In 1628 the Protestant Blondel published his decisive study, "Pseudo-Isidorus et Turrianus vapulantes". Since then the apocryphal nature of the decretals of Isidore has been an established historical fact. The last of the false decretals that had escaped the keen criticism of Blondel were pointed out by two Catholic priests, the brothers Ballerini, in the eighteenth century.


Here is the really interesting part:



How the forgery was done

Isidore was too clever to invent these documents in toto out of his own head.
For the most part he plagiarized them in substance, and often in form.
For the background he made use of certain data such as the "Liber Pontificalis",
a chronicle of the popes from St. Peter onward, which was begun at Rome
during the first twenty years of the sixth century.

For instance, in the "Liber" it is recorded that such a pope issued such a decree that had been lost or mislaid, or perhaps had never existed at all.

Isidore seized the opportunity to supply a pontifical letter suitable for the occasion,
attributing it to the pope whose name was mentioned in the "Liber".

Thus his work had a shadow of historical sanction to back it up.


But it was especially in the form of the letters that the forger played the plagiarist.
His work is a regular mosaic of phrases stolen from various works written either by clerics or laymen.

This network of quotations is computed to number more than 10,000 borrowed phrases, and Isidore succeeded in stringing them together by that loose, easy style of his, in such a way that the many forgeries perpetrated either by him or his assistants have an undeniable family resemblance. Without doubt he was one of the most learned men of his day.

All sorts of dire consequences flow on from this scholarship but in the first instance I am curious over what these 60 Ante Nicene forged decretals look like and in which names of the regular "Church Fathers" were they forged? What do the forgeries actually say? What information have these forged documents imported into the Ante Nicene church fathers (and their heresiological narratives) from the mid 9th century?

Once again DCH thanks for your interest.
Last edited by Leucius Charinus on Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

PS: DCH while I have your attention I had some further questions and observations related to a comparison between the Coptic version of the extract from Plato's Republic in the NHL to the standard Greek version. Here is the thread:

viewtopic.php?p=142521#p142521
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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by Leucius Charinus »


The Donation of Constantine (c.750-800)
  • This is perhaps the most famous forgery in history. For centuries, until Lorenzo Valla proved it was forgery during the Renaissance it provied the basis for papal territorial and jurisdictional claims in Italy. Probably at least a first draft of it was made shortly after the middle of the eighth century in order to assist Pope Stephen II in his negotiations with the Frankish Mayor of the Palace, Pepin the Short. The Pope crossed the Alps to anoint the latter as king in 754, thereby enabling, the Carolingian family, to which Pepin belonged, to supplant the old Merovingian royal line which had become decadent and powerless and to become in law as well as in fact rulers of the Franks. In return, Pepin seems to have promised to give to the Pope those lands in Italy which the Lombards had taken from Byzantium. The promise was fulfilled in 756. Constantine's alleged gift made it possible to interpret Pepin's grant not as a benefaction but as a restoration.
In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, the Father, namely, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine in Christ Jesus, the Lord I God our Saviour, one of that same holy Trinity,-faithful merciful, supreme, beneficent, Alamannic, Gothic, Sarmatic, Germanic, Britannic, Hunic, pious, fortunate, victor and triumpher, always august: to the most holy and blessed father of fathers Sylvester, bishop of the city of and to all his successors the pontiffs , who are about to sit upon Rome and pope, the chair of St. Peter until the end of time - also to all the most reverend and of God beloved catholic bishops, subjected by this our imperial decree throughout the whole world to this same holy, Roman church, who have been established now and in all previous times-grace, peace, charitv, rejoicing, long-suffering, mercv, be with you all from God the Father almighty and from Jesus Christ his Son and from the Holy Ghost. Our most gracious serenity desires, in clear discourse, through the page of this our imperial decree, to bring to the knowledge of all the people in the whole world what things our Saviour and Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the most High Father, has most wonderfully seen fit to bring about through his holy apostles Peter and Paul and by the intervention of our father Sylvester, the highest pontiff and the universal pope. First, indeed, putting forth, with the inmost confession of our heart, for the purpose of instructing the mind of all of you, our creed which we have learned from the aforesaid most blessed father and our confessor, Svlvester the universal pontiff; and then at length announcing the mercy of God which has been poured upon us.

For we wish you to know,, as we have signified through our former imperial decree, that we have gone away, from the worship of idols, from mute and deaf images made by hand, from devilish contrivances and from all the pomps of Satan; and have arrived at the pure faith of the Christians, which is the true light and everlasting life. Believing, according to what he-that same one, our revered supreme father and teacher, the pontiff Sylvester - has taught us, in God the Father, the almighty maker of Heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord God, through whom all things are created; and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and vivifier of the whole creature. We confess these, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in such way that, in the perfect Trinity, there shall also be a fulness of divinity and a unity of power. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and these three are one in Jesus Christ.

There are therefore three forms but one power. For God, wise in all previous time, gave forth from himself the word through which all future ages were to be born; and when, by that sole word of His wisdom, He formed the whole creation from nothing, He was with it, arranging all things in His mysterious secret place.

Therefore, the virtues of the Heavens and all the material part of the earth having been perfected, by the wise nod of His wisdom first creating man of the clay of the earth in His own image and likeness, He placed him in a paradise of delight. Him the ancient serpent and envious enemy, the devil, through the most bitter taste of the forbidden tree, made an exile from these joys; and, be being expelled, did not cease in many ways to cast his poisonous darts; in order that, turning the human race from the way of truth to the worship of idols, he might persuade it, namely to worship the creature and not the creator; so that, through them (the idols), he might cause those whom he might be able to entrap in his snares to be burned with him in eternal punishment. But our Lord, pitying His creature, sending ahead His holy prophets, announcing through them the light of the future life-the coming,' that is, of His Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ-sent that same only begotten Son and Word of wisdom: He descending from Heaven on account of our salvation, being born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary,-the word was made flesh and d welt among us. He did not cease to be what He had been, but began to be what He had not been, perfect God and perfect man: as God, performing miracles; as man, sustaining human sufferings. We so learned Him to be very man and very God by the preaching of our father Sylvester, the supreme pontiff, that we can in no wise doubt that He was very, God and very man. And, having chosen twelve apostles, He shone with miracles before them and an innumerable multitude of people. We confess that this same Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets; that He suffered, was crucified, on the third day arose from the dead according to the Scriptures; was received into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. Whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. For this is our orthodox creed, placed before us by our most blessed father Sylvester, the supreme pontiff. We exhort, therefore, all people, and all the different nations, to hold, cherish and preach this faith; and, in the name of the Holy Trinity, to obtain the grace of baptism; and, with devaout heart, to adore the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns through infinite ages; whom Sylvester our father, the universal pontiff, preaches. For He himself, our Lord God, having pit on me a sinner, sent His holy apostles to visit us, and caused the light of his splendour to shine upon us. And do ye rejoice that I, having been withdrawn from the shadow, have come to the true light and to the knowledge of truth. For, at a time when a mighty and filthy leprosy had invaded all the flesh of my, body, and the care was administered of many physicians who came together, nor by that of any one of them did I achieve health: there came hither the priests of the Capitol, saving to me that a font should be made on the Capitol, and that I should fill this with the blood of innocent infants; and that, if I bathed in it while it was warm, I might be cleansed. And very many innocent infants having been brought together according to their words, when the sacrilegious priests of the pagans wished them to be slaughtered and the font to be filled with their blood: Our Serenity perceiving the tears of the mothers, I straightway abhorred the deed. And, pitying them, I ordered their own sons to be restored to them; and, giving them vehicles and gifts, sent them off rejoicing to their own. That day having passed therefore-the silence of night having come upon us-when the time of sleep had arrived, the apostles St. Peter and Paul appear, saying to me: "Since thou hast placed a term to thy vices, and hast abhorred the pouring forth of innocent blood, we are sent by, Christ the Lord our God, to give to thee a plan for recovering thy health. Hear, therefore, our warning, and do what we indicate to thee. Sylvester - the bishop of the city of Rome - on Mount Serapte, fleeing they persecutions, cherishes the darkness with his clergy in the caverns of the rocks. This one, when thou shalt have led him to thyself, will himself show thee a pool of piety; in which, when he shall have dipped thee for the third time, all that strength of the leprosy will desert thee. And, when this shall have been done, make this return to thy Saviour, that by thy order through the whole world the churches may be restored. Purify thyself, moreover, in this way, that, leaving all the superstition of idols, thou do adore and cherish the living and true God -- who is alone and true -- and that thou attain to the doing of His will.

Rising, therefore, from sleep, straightway I did according to that which I bad been advised to do by, the holy apostles; and, having summoned that excellent and benignant father and our enlightener - Svlvester the universal pope-I told him all the words that had been taught me by the holy apostles; and asked him who where those gods Peter and Paul. But he said that they where not really called gods, but apostles of our Saviour the Lord God Jesus Christ. And again we began to ask that same most blessed pope whether he had some express image of those apostles; so that, from their likeness, we might learn that they were those whom revelation bad shown to us. Then that same venerable father ordered the images of those same apostles to be shown by his deacon. And, when I had looked at them, and recognized, represented in those images, the countenances of those whom I had seen in my dream: with a great noise, before all my satraps*, I confessed that they were those whom I had seen in my dream.
[* there were no such Roman officials]

Hereupon that same most blessed Sylvester our father, bishop of the city of Rome, imposed upon us a time of penance-within our Lateran palace, in the chapel, in a hair garment,-so that I might obtain pardon from our Lord God Jesus Christ our Saviour by vigils, fasts, and tears and prayers, for all things that had been impiously done and unjustly ordered by me. Then through the imposition of the hands of the clergy, I came to the bishop himself; and there, renouncing the pomps of Satan and his works, and all idols made by hands, of my own will before all the people I confessed: that I believed in God the Father almighty, maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary. And, the font having been blessed, the wave of salvation purified me there with a triple immersion. For there 1, being placed at the bottom of the font, saw with my own eyes a band from Heaven touching me; whence rising, clean, know that I was cleansed from all the squalor of leprosy. And, I being raised from the venerable font-putting on white raiment, be administered to me the sign of the seven-fold holy Spirit, the unction of the holy oil; and he traced the sign of the holy cross on my brow, saying: God seals thee with the seal of His faith in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, to signalize thy faith. All the clergy replied: "Amen." The bishop added, "peace be with thee."

And so, on the first day after receiving the mystery of the holy baptism, and after the cure of my body from the squalor of the leprosy, I recognized that there was no other God save the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; whom the most blessed Sylvester the pope doth preach; a trinity in one, a unity in three. For all the gods of the nations, whom I have worshipped up to this time, are proved to be demons; works made by the hand of men; inasmuch as that same venerable father told to us most clearly how much power in Heaven and on earth He, our Saviour, conferred on his apostle St. Peter, when finding him faithful after questioning him He said: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock (petrani) shall I build My Church, and the gates of bell shall not prevail against it." Give heed ye powerful, and incline the ear of .your hearts to that which the good Lord and Master added to His disciple, saying: and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in Heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in Heaven." This is very wonderful and glorious, to bind and loose on earth and to have it bound and loosed in Heaven.

And when, the blessed Sylvester preaching them, I perceived these things, and learned that by the kindness of St. Peter himself I had been entirely restored to health: I together with all our satraps and the whole senate and the nobles and all the Roman people, who are subject to the glory of our rule -considered it advisable that, as on earth he (Peter) is seen to have been constituted vicar of the Son of God, so the pontiffs, who are the representatives of that same chief of the apostles, should obtain from us and our empire the power of a supremacy greater than the earthly clemency of our imperial serenity is seen to have had conceded to it,-we choosing that same prince of the apostles, or his vicars, to be our constant intercessors with God. And, to the extent of our earthly imperial power, we decree that his holy Roman church shall be honoured with veneration; and that, more than our empire and earthly throne, the most sacred seat of St. Peter shall be gloriously exalted; we giving to it the imperial power, and dignity of glory, and vigour and honour.

And we ordain and decree that he shall have the supremacy as well over the four chief seats Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople* and Jerusalem, as also over all the churches of God in the -whole world. And he who for the time being shall be pontiff of that holy Roman church shall be more exalted than, and chief over, all the priests of the whole world; and, according to his judgment, everything which is to be provided for the service of God or the stability of the faith of the Christians is to be administered. It is indeed just, that there the holy law should have the seat of its rule where the founder of holy laws, our Saviour, told St. Peter to take the chair of the apostleship; where also, sustaining the cross, he blissfully took the cup of death and appeared as imitator of his Lord and Master; and that there the people should bend their necks at the confession of Christ's name, where their teacher, St. Paul the apostle, extending his neck for Christ, was crowned with martyrdom. There, until the end, let them seek a teacher, where the holy body of the teacher lies; and there, prone and humiliated, let them perform I the service of the heavenly king, God our Saviour Jesus Christ, where the proud were accustomed to serve under the rule of an earthly king.
[*at the time of the supposed date of the document, Constantinople had not been founded. Its position as "chief seat" was two centuries away.]

Meanwhile we wish all the people, of all the races and nations throughout the whole world, to know: that we have constructed within our Lateran palace, to the same Saviour our Lord God Jesus Christ, a church with a baptistry from the foundations. And know that we have carried on our own shoulders from its foundations, twelve baskets weighted with earth, according to the number of the holy apostles. Which holy church we command to be spoken of, cherished, venerated and preached of, as the head and summit of all the churches in the whole world-as we have commanded through our other imperial decrees. We have also constructed the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, chiefs of the apostles, which we have enriched with gold and silver; where also, placing their most sacred bodies with great honour, we have constructed their caskets of electrum, against which no force of the elements prevails. And we have placed a cross of purest gold and precious gems on each of their caskets, and fastened them with golden keys. And on these churches for the endowing of divine services we have conferred estates, and have enriched them with different objects; and, through our sacred imperial decrees, we have granted them our gift of land in the East as well as in the West; and even on the northern and southern coast;-namely in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa and Italy and the various islands: under this condition indeed, that all shall be administered by the hand of our most blessed father the pontiff Sylvester and his successors.

For let all the people and the nations of the races in the whole world rejoice with us; we exhorting all of you to give unbounded thanks, together with us, to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. For He is God in Heaven above and on earth below, who, visiting us through His holy apostles, made us worthy to receive the holy sacrament of baptism and health of body. In return for which, to those same holy apostles, my masters, St. Peter and St. Paul; and, through them, also to St. Sylvester, our father,-the chief pontiff and universal pope of the city of Rome,-and to all the pontiffs his successors, who until the end of the world shall be about to sit in the seat of St. Peter: we concede and, by this present, do confer, our imperial Lateran palace, which is preferred to, and ranks above, all the palaces in the whole world; then a diadem, that is, the crown of our head, and at the same time the tiara; and, also, the shoulder band,-that is, the collar that usually surrounds our imperial neck; and also the purple mantle, and crimson tunic, and all the imperial raiment; and the same rank as those presiding over the imperial cavalry; conferring also the imperial sceptres, and, at the same time, the spears and standards; also the banners and different imperial ornaments, and all the advantage of our high imperial position, and the glory of our power.

And we decree, as to those most reverend men, the clergy who serve, in different orders, that same holy Roman church, that they shall have the same advantage, distinction, power and excellence by the glory of which our most illustrious senate is adorned; that is, that they shall be made patricians and consuls,-we commanding that they shall also be decorated with the other imperial dignities. And even as the imperial soldiery, so, we decree, shall the clergy of the holy Roman church be adorned. And I even as the imperial power is adorned by different offices-by the distinction, that is, of chamberlains, and door keepers, and all the guards,-so we wish the holy Roman church to be adorned. And, in order that the pontifical glory may shine forth more fully, we decree this also: that the clergy of this same holy Roman church may use saddle cloths of linen of the whitest colour; namely that their horses may be adorned and so be ridden, and that, as our senate uses shoes with goats' hair, so they may be distinguished by gleaming linen; in order that, as the celestial beings, so the terrestrial may be adorned to the glory of God. Above all things, moreover, we give permission to that same most holy one our father Sylvester, bishop of the city of Rome and pope, and to all the most blessed pontiffs who shall come after him and succeed him in all future times-for the honour and glory of Jesus Christ our Lord,-to receive into that great Catholic and apostolic church of God, even into the number of the monastic clergy, any one from our senate, who, in free choice, of his own accord, may wish to become- a cleric; no one at all presuming thereby to act in a haughty manner.

We also decreed this, that this same venerable one our father Sylvester, the supreme pontiff, and all the pontiffs his successors, might use and bear upon their heads-to the Praise of God and for the honour of St. Peter-the diadem; that is, the crown which we have granted him from our own head, of purest gold and precious gems. But he, the most holy pope, did not at all allow that crown of gold to be used over the clerical crown which he wears to the glory of St. Peter; but we placed upon his most holy head, with our own hands, a tiara of gleaming splendour representing the glorious resurrection of our Lord. And, holding the bridle of his horse, out of reverence for St. Peter we performed for him the duty of groom; decreeing that all the pontiffs his successors, and they alone, may use that tiara in processions.

In imitation of our own power, in order that for that cause the supreme pontificate may not deteriorate, but may rather be adorned with power and glory even more than is the dignity of an earthly rule: behold we-giving over to the oft-mentioned most blessed pontiff, our father Sylvester the universal pope, as well our palace, as has been said, as also the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts and cities of Italy or of the western regions; and relinquishing them, by our inviolable gift, to the power and sway of himself or the pontiffs his successors-do decree, by this our godlike charter and imperial constitution, that it shall be (so) arranged; and do concede that they (the palaces, provinces etc.) shall lawfully remain with the holy Roman church.

Wherefore we have perceived it to be fitting that our empire and the power of our kingdom should be transferred and changed to the regions of the East; and that, in the province of Byzantium, in a most fitting place, a city should be built in our name; and that our empire should there be established. For, where the supremacy of priests and the bead of the Christian religion has been established by a heavenly ruler, it is not just that there an earthly ruler should have jurisdiction.

We decree, moreover, that all these things which, through this our imperial charter and through other godlike commands, we have established and confirmed, shall remain uninjured and unshaken until the end of the world. Wherefore, before the living God, who commanded us to reign, and in the face of his terrible judgment, we conjure, through this our imperial decree, all the emperors our successors, and all our nobles, the satraps also and the most glorious senate, and all the people in the ,A-hole world now and in all times previously subject to our rule: that no one of them, in any way allow himself to oppose or disregard, or in any way seize, these things which, by our imperial sanction, have been conceded to the holy Roman church and to all its pontiffs. If anyone, moreover,-which we do not believe - prove a scorner or despiser in this matter, he shall be subject and bound over to eternal damnation; and shall feel that the holy chiefs of the apostles of God, Peter and Paul, will be opposed to him in the present and in the future life. And, being burned in the nethermost hell, he shall perish with the devil and all the impious.

The page, moreover, of this our imperial decree, we, confirming it with our own hands, did place above the venerable body of St. Peter chief of the apostles; and there, promising to that same apostle of God that we would preserve inviolably all its provisions, and would leave in our commands to all the emperors our successors to preserve them, we did hand it over, to be enduringly and happily possessed, to our most blessed father Sylvester the supreme pontiff and universal pope, and, through him, to all the pontiffs his successors -God our Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ consenting.

And the imperial subscription: May the Divinity preserve you for many years, oh most holy and blessed fathers.

Given at Rome on the third day before the Kalends of April, our master the august Flavius Constantine, for the fourth time, and Galligano, most illustrious men, being consuls.

(From Zeumer's edition, published in Berlin in 1888, v. Brunner-Zeumer: "Die Constantinische Schenkungsurkunde") translated in Ernest F. Henderson, , Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages , (London: George Bell, 1910), pp. 319-329


https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/donatconst.asp


Medieval Sourcebook: The Donation of Constantine (c.750-800)

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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by DCHindley »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:40 pm PS: DCH while I have your attention I had some further questions and observations related to a comparison between the Coptic version of the extract from Plato's Republic in the NHL to the standard Greek version. Here is the thread:

viewtopic.php?p=142521#p142521
I seem to recall we did have an exchange about this, maybe on another thread. IIRC, you saw more to the Coptic translation of Plato than I did, and expressed frustration that I was not seeing things your way.

DCH
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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

DCHindley wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2023 12:20 pm
Leucius Charinus wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:40 pm PS: DCH while I have your attention I had some further questions and observations related to a comparison between the Coptic version of the extract from Plato's Republic in the NHL to the standard Greek version. Here is the thread:

viewtopic.php?p=142521#p142521
I seem to recall we did have an exchange about this, maybe on another thread. IIRC, you saw more to the Coptic translation of Plato than I did, and expressed frustration that I was not seeing things your way.
I actually misread your original article which had more to do with the lion and the man in the gospel of Thomas rather than the lion and the man in the Plato extract. So my apologies for that.
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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

The following from www.catholicbridge.com.
It looks like they are seeking these letters as well.

If anyone can locate these letters anywhere let me know



Were letters of Papal Authority from the Church Fathers Forgeries?
The Psuedo-Isidore Decretals


There was a group of forged documents in the 800's, which have come to be called the Pseudo-Isidore Decretals. There is an extensive article about them in the Catholic Encyclopedia. The Collection of Isidore falls under three headings:
  • A list of sixty apocryphal letters or decrees attributed to the popes from St. Clement (88-97) to Melchiades (311-314) inclusive. Of these sixty letters fifty-eight are forgeries; they begin with a letter from Aurelius of Carthage requesting Pope Damasus (366-384) to send him the letters of his predecessors in the chair of the Apostles; and this is followed by a reply in which Damasus assures Aurelius that the desired letters were being sent. This correspondence was meant to give an air of truth to the false decretals, and was the work of Isidore.
  • A treatise on the Primitive Church and on the Council of Nicæa, written by Isidore, and followed by the authentic canons of fifty-four councils.
  • The letters mainly of thirty-three popes, from Silvester (314-335) to Gregory II(715-731). Of these about thirty letters are forgeries, while all the others are authentic.
Every church in every age, and since the Reformation, every denomination has had it's Judas. However, some apologists from the 1990's, got pretty shrill about how this proves that the entire Catholic Church worldwide, and across the ages, is corrupt. We think, condemning the rest of the apostles for Judas' betrayal would be as ridiculous and uncharitable as projecting the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals to 2000 years of Church history, millions of documents, and 1600 years of monasteries.

We have been all over the Internet and have not found an English translation of these letters. If someone knows of an academic translation, please provide it. We think the Catholic Encyclopedia has an even-handed description of their mistaken acceptance and their detractors before Blondel wrote his book in 1628. He was a Protestant, just after the Reformation who had great motivation to get to the bottom of it. Two Catholic Priests finished off the research to expose the remaining letters.

The primary source for this expansion of the Pseudo-Isidore letters upon the entire Church is William (Bill) Webster, an ex-Catholic apologist. He came from a generation when apologists were hostile, both on the Catholic side and Protestant side. It does not appear that he has been active for at least 7 years. We're not sure what he's doing these days but he seems to have given up on apologetics.

One particularly shrill reader said ALL statements about popes are forgeries. But so far nothing they have shown us proves any errors in the primacy statements, only that there are some forged documents whose contents do not appear to be available online in English. Our invitation is to show us those forgeries translated to English by a reputable source. We doubt that will happen.

Were entire monasteries working on forging documents for Popes in the 8th Century?

This is a very sensational assertion by Bill Webster. We have to remember that the Bible that we read today was preserved by monasteries. Generation after generation of monks in monasteries took pride in the scribing. This oldest intact Bible that exists in the world was created by monks. In 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were found which are from 200BC. They exactly match the Monks' writing which were copies of copies of copies. They had remarkable accuracy. Monasteries protected civilization through the Dark Ages. Our article on the Catholic Church and the Bible is here. An internet search on monastic forgeries showed two academic books about the subject. The only accusations against forgeries in monasteries that we can find originate in England. In ancient times, England was months of travel away from the Holy See, in Rome, and they spoke different languages.

One of the shrillest sites that proposes the theory that Popes had pet monasteries that wrote them fake historical documents, is ironically, a site that has posted fictitious anti-Catholic testimonies from non-existent "ex-nun" Mary Ann Collins. Should we assume because an Evangelical apparently forged this nun, that every Protestant apologist has ill will and lies? This would be an uncharitable and weak position. Most apologists have good will, whether they are Protestant or Catholic. We should never project the dishonesty of an individual or group of small individuals on a whole organization. The word for this is "prejudice". Here is an excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia article. It is also important to note that often Isadore was plagiarizing, rather than forging.

The Authority of the Pope

[trimmed]

SOURCE: https://www.catholicbridge.com/catholic ... sidore.php

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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Detlev Jasper and Horst Fuhrmann
Papal Letters in the
Early Middle Age
https://www.gbv.de/dms/spk/sbb/toc/317993526.pdf

This is just a table of contents.
But it's a start.

Contents

Foreword by Wilfried Hartmann and Kenneth Pennington, ix
Abbreviations, xi

THE BEGINNING OF THE DECRETAL TRADITION
Papal Letters from the Origin of the Genre through the
Pontificate of Stephen V, by Detlev Jasper

Prefatory Remarks 3

PART i Papal Letters and Decretals Written from the
Beginning through the Pontificate of Gregory the
Great (to 604) 7
I. Transmission and Reception of Decretals and Letters from
Siricius (384-399) through Sixtus III (432-440) 7

1. The Papacy at the End of the Fourth Century, 7
2. The First Papal Decretals, 11
2.1. The Characteristics of Papal Decretals, n
a. Definition of a Decretal, 12
b. Earlier Models for Papal Decretals, 13
c. Arenga, 14
d. Decretals and Councils, 16
e. The 'Corpus' of a Papal Decreta!, 18
f. Literary Sources, 19
g. Distribution, 20

2.2. The Earliest Decretal Collections, 22
a. Canones urbicani, 23
b. Episwlae decretales, 25
c. Common Source of the Collectio Ccrbeiensü and
the Collectio Pithouensis, 26
d. Individual Items, 27
vi Contents

Appendix I: The Canones synodi Romanorum ad Gallos episcopos—
The Earliest Papal Decretal? 28
Appendix II: A Canonistic School at Arles? 32

3. Other Surviving Papal Letters from Siricius to Sixtus III
and Their Reception into the Canon, 34
3.1. Siricius (384-399), 34
3.2. Innocent 1 (401-417), 35
3.3. Celestine I (422-432), 38
II. The Letters and Decretals of Pope Leo I (440-461) 41
1. The Earliest Traditions, 41
2. The Decretals of Pope Leo I, 49
3. Pope Leo I's Letters and Decretals in Pseudo-Isidore, 53

4. The Reception of Pope Leo I's Letters, 57
III. From Simplicius to Gregory I (468-604):
Transmission and Reception 59
1. Simplicius (468—483), Felix III (483-492), Gelasius (492-496), 61
2. Papal Letters of the Sixth Century: Transmission and
Reception into the Canon, 65
3. Gregory I (590-604), 70

IV. Collections of Papal Letters 81
1. Collectio ecclesiae Thessalonicensis, 81
2. Collectio Avellana, 83
3. Liber auctoritatum ecclesiae Arelatensis, 85

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Re: Examples of Pseudo-Isidore forged letters from Ante Nicene epoch?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Isidore

External links


* "Projekt Pseudoisidor" (older online edition-in-progress of the False Decretals, now discontinued), Monumenta Germaniae Historica. (in German and Latin)
http://www.pseudoisidor.mgh.de/

* The False Capitularies of Benedictus Levita, Monumenta Germaniae Historica. (in German and Latin).
http://www.benedictus.mgh.de/haupt.htm

* "Opera Omnia" by Migne Patrologia Latina, with analytical indexes. (in Latin)
http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/3 ... cator.html

* Pseudo-Isidore: An Edition-in-Progress of the False Decretals
https://pseudo-isidore.com/


Do any of these links lead to these 60 Ante-Nicene letters?
(I don't know German and my Latin is poor)
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